Cinema

It’s that time of year, folks. There’s a chill in the air, and down your spine. Trees become skeletal, the ground crunches underfoot, the moon comes out and the fog rolls in. It’s time to get freaky, and the Brooklyn Horror Film Fest can help you do just that. Taking place this year over the weekend of Friday October 13th through Sunday October 15th, we are lucky to have most of the screening venues in our ‘hood. Perfect for a date, or going it alone (if you dare). They’ll be presenting independent feature films and shorts from horror filmmakers from around the world, including some local to NYC. And, the fest will also be hosting an opening night party, panel discussions, Q&A’s with filmmakers, games, contests, merch tables, an award ceremony and a sendoff party after the final screening.

Experimental film and art venue Light Industryis located on Freeman Street, on the bottom floor in an unassuming apartment building on this tree-lined Greenpoint street. The movie theatre is led by a hearty team of two: co-founders Thomas Beard and Ed Halter curate the programming, cultivate the audiences, and maintain the performance space.

The space itself at Light Industry is white-walled and welcoming. Its simple appearance falls in line with the company’s ethos. “We have a very approachable space,” says Halter. “It feels modest, it feels like it is human scale — both Thomas and I feel inspired by the DIY scene.” Beard says that the screening room is a cinema reduced to its most essential values, with a white projection surface, a grid of folding chairs, and a couple of speakers. The screening room can accommodate up to 75 people. The theatre’s small team paired with its intimate space bring audiences closer to the programming. A patron once said that the experience of visiting Light Industry is like going to a film nerd’s basement. And that’s just what Beard and Halter were going for.Continue reading →

When Will Malitek, the owner of Film Noir Cinema (122 Meserole Ave), turned an old Greenpoint funeral home into his gorgeous new 54-seat movie theater, he remodeled with very specific plans in mind. There’s a sizeable gap between the screen and the first row, where Will says he could have added more seats, but he wanted space to present live music.

This summer, Film Noir Cinema has launched a new series presenting silent films with live music by Reel Orchestrette, a collaboration between musicians Bradford Reed and Geoff Gersh.

After a sold-out screening of Nosferatu in June, Reel Orchestrette is returning to Film Noir Cinema on Saturday, July 22 at 9pm with a live score for Faust, a 1926 German silent film directed by F. W. Murnau.

These two events are only the beginning. Malitek hopes to continue the series with screenings of all the major German silent films: Metropolis, Waxworks, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari and more. And in October, he says we can expect to see a full lineup of silent horror films.

Tickets for Faust are $15 and on sale now at Film Noir Cinema (where you should also take a moment to flip through their incredible collection of films available to rent).

To find out more about the performance, we spoke with Reel Orchestrette’s Bradford Reed and Geoff Gersh. Continue reading →

Filmmakers! Nitehawk needs your shorts by June 25th! And the prizes are pretty big: the Festival Jury Winner receives post-production sound services from Heard City (worth $16k) and post-production coloring from Nice Shoes (worth $20k). Your short must run under 20 minutes long, and should have been completed in 2015-2017.

Ok, so we’ve been stuck in the weather purgatory that is Spring (it’s hot/it’s cold/it’s rainy/it sucks), but it’s already time to start planning out our summer outdoor activities—because before we know it we’ll be stuck in blizzard land. In North Brooklyn we’re lucky to have three awesome options for watching movies outdoors this summer! Because who doesn’t love a good excuse to sit amongst the fireflies and watch the sun set on a blanket next to their honey (or doggie) with a pre-hot-mess Lindsey Lohan snarling on the big screen? (See Mean Girls at SummerScreen in McCarren, Wednesday July 5th).

THE SUNSET SCREENINGS — ROOFTOP MOVIES AT DOBBIN STREET
A new free monthly rooftop film series, The Sunset Screenings, kicks off May 24th and runs through September. The free movies will screen at local event space Dobbin St (64 Dobbin Street) on their 3,000 sq ft rooftop terrace. Just as the sun sets over the Manhattan skyline, the films will begin. To complement the view, the series is“city” themed, representing the world’s most iconic cities from New York to Tokyo with a carefully curated list of films. Here’s the schedule:

Greenpoint is a hub for filmmaking, boasting countless production companies and film facilities, in addition to the oft-maligned and very frequent film shoots that tend to clog our slender sidewalks and historical streets. We would argue that Greenpoint’s been culturally interesting and relevant for many years, but some have said that Girls being filmed here helped put Greenpoint on the map. Our neighborhood’s own Greenpoint Film Festival returns for its sixth year,​ from this Thursday May 4th through Sunday May 7th, presenting a diverse range of shorts and feature-length films, many with a local slant. A panel of six judges curated the fest after receiving hundreds of submissions in set categories: Narr​a​tive​, Documentary, Experimental and Animation. The GFF’s ongoing mission is to show the imperative ties between art and the public. All the screenings will be held at the Wythe Hotel Screening Room (80 Wythe Ave). Continue reading →

In a time when almost every other video rental store has closed its doors, it feels like a miracle that Greenpoint’s beloved Film Noir (formerly at 10 Bedford Avenue, and previously profiled by Greenpointers in 2014) has not only survived, it’s expanding.

On March 31st, owner Will Malitek moved shop and opened a gorgeous, 54-seat art house cinema at 122 Meserole Avenue. You can still stop in to browse and rent hard-to-find titles. But now, even better, you can also catch carefully curated screenings of cult classics and underground films in an intimate neighborhood movie theater. Check out what’s playing on their site.

We stopped by to talk with Will about how he got started, his new location, and what Film Noir Cinema has in store for the future.

One of the area’s brightest summer events, Films on the Green will be returning to Greenpoint’s WNYC Transmitter Park to project two films ‘en plein air’.

An initiative of the Cultural Services of the French Embassy in the US, the FACE Foundation and the City of New York Parks & Recreation, Films on the Green Films is unique among the myriad of free movie screenings attracting cineastes to NY green spaces every summer, as each year the series presents a free and fresh sampling of French films around a given theme.

This year, as part of the Tandem Paris-New York, a cultural partnership between the cities of New York and Paris including a music festival, film, art, and other events, running between June and October 2016, Films on the Green presents classic and contemporary films that, “present the diversity of Paris, its inhabitants, landscapes, and cultures”.

Greenpointers can view two classic French films projected alongside an unmatched East River view of Manhattan, when Luc Besson’s ‘Subway’ screens June 24th and François Truffaut’s ‘400 Blows’ on July 1st. Continue reading →

Who likes Short Shorts? Crest likes Short Shorts! Crest Hardware is proud to announce the Quickie Crest Film Fest, a celebration of local film talent with a fast-paced twist.

They want to see what local movie makers have to offer in the playful, “short short film” format. Participants submit on the theme of “community” – be it personal community, local community, or universal community for the truly ambitious. Any genre will be accepted as long as it can reasonably be tied to the theme.